ODU squeaks by on 'Duncan' day

Melinda Waldrop247-4634

Gerald Lee outdueled Charles Jenkins in a two-man show Saturday, scoring a career-high 30 points as Old Dominion held off Hofstra 52-51 in a quarterfinal of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament at Richmond Coliseum.

Lee scored a career-high 30 points and had a game-high 10 rebounds. The Monarchs survived to face Virginia Commonwealth in today's 3 p.m. semifinal when Jonathan Adams partially blocked a last-gasp jumper from Jenkins, who had 27 points, at the buzzer.

"Gerald Lee today played like Tim Duncan," Hofstra coach Tom Pecora said. "I referred to him as our league's version of that. He just did a tremendous job offensively in the post, making big plays when it mattered."

Lee, playing with a stress fracture in his left foot, had 18 points at halftime, and his layup with 1:45 to play gave ODU (21-9) the lead for good at 48-47. His putback off Darius James' missed 3-pointer made it 50-47 with 40 seconds left, but the Monarchs had to sweat those final ticks.

Jenkins drove the lane, was fouled and made both free throws to pull the Pride (21-11) within 50-49. James was then fouled with 20 seconds left and rattled in the front end of a one-and-one before swishing the second shot for a 52-49 lead.

Back to Jenkins, whose jumper cut ODU's lead to one again. Then, Frank Hassell slipped after inbounding the ball to James, and James' return pass ended up under a pile of bodies. The officials awarded a timeout to Hofstra with 3.8 seconds left.

To no one's surprise, Jenkins got the inbounds pass, penetrated and shot from 12 feet, but his off-balance heave met Adams' hand as the horn sounded.

"I wanted to cover him late," Adams said. "He scored a lot of points, but we tried to make him take a lot of shots to get there."

Jenkins was 9-of-23 from the floor, while Lee was 13-of-19. No other player from either team cracked double digits.

"It was a pretty good show that Jenkins and Gerald put on," ODU coach Blaine Taylor said.

The Monarchs built a 10-point second-half lead as Hofstra, the fifth seed, missed its first nine shots. But then it was fourth-seeded ODU's turn to go cold, scoring just four points in six minutes as the Pride went up 47-46 on Jenkins' 3-pointer with 2:13 left.

But Lee answered that big shot with a layup off Ben Finney's post feed despite getting poked in the eye.

In the first half, Hofstra went up by 11 with a 20-2 run, but the Monarchs punched back with a 17-4 spurt to lead 28-26.

"We're a pretty good rebounding team, so we're not really too concerned about missing (shots)," said Adams, who had seven points and eight rebounds and made ODU's only two 3-pointers. "We could have helped Gerald out a little more if we could have knocked down some shots, but I think the best thing about this team is we don't let one end affect the other end. We missed a shot, we got right back down on defense."

ODU's only loss in its last 10 regular-season games came in a 60-51 setback on Feb. 10 at Hofstra, when the Monarchs shot just 27.5 percent and had a record 13 shots blocked. Hofstra blocked four shots Saturday and was outrebounded 46-34.

"We didn't get all the stops," Taylor said. "Charles Jenkins made some really nice plays down the stretch, but our team absorbed that psychologically pretty well. ... I cautioned them that that's the kind of basketball you better be psychologically prepared to play at the end of the year. The other guy isn't going to go away. The other guy is going to make some runs. You've got to be able to answer them."